Six weeks of billing per year != six weeks of work. I believe when he was consulting he also travelled quite a lot (both for engagements and to drum up business) - having a family makes that less attractive.
Agree with you 100%. To me, reading those kinds of posts are very misleading as they give you all the good stuff but none of the gory details of travel, how long it takes to close a deal, etc. I have clients all over the place, rarely travel and make a great money. It just seems very strange to me that someone that seems to have such a grip on billing, etc. can't seem to make these things work to his benefit.
A post that devoted equal time to all the boring stuff wouldn't be much of a read. I think where people get thrown is when he talks about the _technical_ skills required which he downplays. As software developers I think it's easy for us to think that doing really technically advanced work implies getting paid more.
Transparency isn't about things being exciting all the time, it's about being transparent. I would venture to guess that Patrick is not a 10x developer and his real skill is self promotion. I agree about equating really technically advanced and getting paid more and also agree that it's bullshit. Any independent developer should spend more time understanding sales and self promotion than learning another language, IMHO. You will get far more bang for your buck by being a good negotiator than you will from coding the bestest codez around.
